Quick Printing is the resource for the Commercial printing, visual and graphic arts industries. Since 1977, Quick Printing has focused on improving efficiency and increasing sales and profits in the print shop. Industry experts share their ideas and
Issue link: https://quickprinting.epubxp.com/i/439766
Quick Printing | January 2015 19 MyPRINTResource.com Acquisition of 120-year-old CPC not only bridges three centuries but creates synergies that will bring North Carolina's printing industry to the next level for decades to come. By Howard Riell " The opportunity just arose from our two families," explained Chris Andrews, AlphaGraphics sales VP. "We've known of the Moores and CPC for a long time. It's the oldest printer in North Carolina, and it just seemed like a natural ft. We have a new franchise with a lot of digital design and cutting-edge experience pitching one [set of] things, but we needed to follow it up with traditional expertise with legacy printing." It was Andrews and his people who initially approached CPC. "A mutual acquaintance put our ownership group together with [principal owner] Ralph Moore, and that's how it went down." Moore remains onboard to ease the transition and handle several of his long-time accounts. Andrews's co-franchisee, Michael Linden, serves as operations VP. CPC was the larger of the two frms, with more than 400 customers to AlphaGraphics's 100 to 150. The deal took nearly four months to broker. The combined companies, Commercial Printing Powered by AlphaGraphics, represent more than 200 years of experience and a deep- ly rooted commitment to the printing industry and to the state of North Carolina. The company and its 25 employ- ees now operate from a single, 11,000-sqft facility. The merger flled several needs. "We were growing very quickly as an AlphaGraphics franchise in downtown Raleigh, which is a very quickly expanding business market," noted Andrews. "We needed to partner with a printer with great traditional and legacy in offset, and had a little digital and a great staff. The most important thing we needed was personnel." The synergy was apparent to all, Andrews said. "We saw what has worked with CPC and what AlphaGraphics as a franchise network is geared towards, and the two really complement each other in terms of optimizing what we can offer a customer." While CPC's strengths include offset print, forms, fnishing, folding, inventory fulfllment and mailing, AlphaGraphics is more focused on digital design, variable-data digital printing, dimensional mail- ing, and wide-format. "Now," he added, "we can go to the customer and say, 'You've been doing this with Company Company Profle: Commercial Printing Powered by AlphaGraphics A, we can do so much more because we've ac- quired Company B.' And vice versa." Linden commented, "AlphaGraphics' exper- tise in marketing communications will enable Commercial Printing Company to deliver a more diverse product offering as both companies expand under this new association." "They are very good at associations, univer- sities, and state government," Andrews said. "What we were really focusing on were small to medium-sized businesses...." The companies' equipment packages were also complementary, noted Andrews. The newly merged frm features three offset presses, including a Heidelberg four-color perfecctor with tower coater, and a Konica Minolta bizhub C8000 digital press. "We are in the contract phase of adding a new high-speed, black-and- white and full-color digital box," he reported. "We're also going to bring in wide-format." Andrews has been looking forward to going multichannel with more clients. "We'd like to be able to offer multichannel marketing. We want to be all-encompassing and really consultative. We have some ideas we want to go after, but frst we have to be seen as experts in our feld, otherwise we're just coming in and pitching things that they might not think we know about." The primary mission for 2015 will be growth within the frm's current customer base. "We absolutely will be looking for new business," Andrews promised, "but the thing right now is telling our existing customers what the increased capabilities are....We won't be looking in too many new areas. I feel like we've got these different industries under our belts, and we just need to look more heavily at them." Additional acquisitions are a defnite possibility. "We are always looking for a good ft for us," Andrews con- cluded. "What that might be next would be a wide-format printer, and with that you need installers and the equip- ment. Really, to invest in great wide-format equipment you need the business to justify it, and so that would be what we would look at next." And that could be as soon as the frst quarter of this new year. Mike Linden, VP of operations. Chris Andrews, VP of sales.